could someone help me authentic this dress thats connected to Billie Holiday?

Do you think this dress could have been Billie Holiday's

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sibvintage

sibvintage

Registered Guest
hi hello,
i am just kindly wondering if any folks know anything about how to authentic this dress?
I bought it in February 2011 online, and the seller said she had bought it in Detroit (a jazz mecca alone)
Later after purchasing this dress i quickly realized that the legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday was photographed wearing this exact dress on more than one occasion and some one those images that she was spotted wearing this dress are some of the most iconic images of jazz history.
this dress has no tags, so it could have possibly been custom made for her.
the measurments of the dress seem to have fit her size at the time seeing as she was no extra small.
the exact measurements are:
bust: 36-38"
waist: 29-30"
hip: free
length: 60"

I have studied as many images i could find online with her in this dress, and have noted the detail cutouts on the cotton lace material. Also the size and structure of the bow, and the scoop cut in the back, the width of the shoulder straps, and the total length of the dress.

if anybody has any information on this dress or Billie Holiday in the dress please feel free to share of if anyone can recommend a good place to get this authenticated in Southern California, please let me know!
thank you so much!
-des
 

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I doubt if there is a way to definitively state that it was hers, though it may be the identical dress, but who could say it was her own?
The pictures are great, and would be an excellent selling point. It appears to have been a favorite style for her.
Could you perhaps show us some photos of inner construction, to assist with the custom made theory?
Exciting find!
 
I agree with Joules. It looks like the same dress, but short of provenance (documentation of a chain of owners that stretches back to her), there's no way to be certain.

Someday, maybe we'll have easy DNA testing available for questions like this!
 
joules said:
I doubt if there is a way to definitively state that it was hers, though it may be the identical dress, but who could say it was her own?
The pictures are great, and would be an excellent selling point. It appears to have been a favorite style for her.
Could you perhaps show us some photos of inner construction, to assist with the custom made theory?
Exciting find!
Click to expand...
i will most definitely get some photos on the interior up as soon as i can! but thank you for all your input!
 
joules said:
I doubt if there is a way to definitively state that it was hers, though it may be the identical dress, but who could say it was her own?
The pictures are great, and would be an excellent selling point. It appears to have been a favorite style for her.
Could you perhaps show us some photos of inner construction, to assist with the custom made theory?
Exciting find!
Click to expand...
if i may ask, what do you think would be a fair price to put on this dress?
 
I looked VERY closely at the eyelets in the bodice and tried to match up the pattern of which ones were cut off by the edge and where they were placed, and they didn't match. The best example is the one of her taken from 3/4 of her singing at the mike. You can clearly count the number and placement of eyelets aobve the bow, between the neckline and armhole etc. and they don't match at all. If the photo has been reversed, which is possible, they would be closer, but it still didn't quite match up. I think you have a dress from the same store - probably Hudson's in Detroit, which was the high-end department store, or perhaps it was made for her by a dressmaker - and you found another one...
 
Jonathan said:
I looked VERY closely at the eyelets in the bodice and tried to match up the pattern of which ones were cut off by the edge and where they were placed, and they didn't match. The best example is the one of her taken from 3/4 of her singing at the mike. You can clearly count the number and placement of eyelets above the bow, between the neckline and armhole etc. and they don't match at all. If the photo has been reversed, which is possible, they would be closer, but it still didn't quite match up. I think you have a dress from the same store - probably Hudson's in Detroit, which was the high-end department store, or perhaps it was made for her by a dressmaker - and you found another one...
Click to expand...

hi hello jonathan
thank you so much for your input! you made a great point counting about the eyelets, however the dress right now is currently nicely packed away in my storage unit, so i dont have it in my hands at this very moment to really take a good look at laying flat and then counting, but i did also take an extra minute and looked at the waist line from the photos and studied the lining where it was cut on the eyelet material and noticed where the material was cut on the waist line, it seems to match up?
mhmhmh....
however i sincerely appreciate all your great input! : )
 
There is the possibility that the dress style was copied at some point, for a stage production or show, Billie Holiday being as endearingly popular as she has proven to be.
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this is/was my exact initial thought as well, Joules.

and without a paper trail, it is simply a lovely, wishful, wistful theory ~

i would suggest trying to contact someone at the Billy Holiday Memorial Foundation, possibly, for help.

Billie Holiday Memorial Foundation Inc in Washington, DC is a private company categorized under Art Instruction and Schools. Records show it was established in 1972 and incorporated in District of Columbia Phone: (202) 898-1673
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I think you have a very similar dress, but in the photos of Billie, the black parts of the dress do not come off as cotton. They look like a more formal fabric such as fine faille or something similar. The first image even looks velvet. Your dress may indeed be a twin, but looking at the photos and at your dress, the fabric seems to be not quite identical. I also wonder if this was made for a production and am looking forward to seeing the interior details.
 
TheVintageVortex said:
I think you have a very similar dress, but in the photos of Billie, the black parts of the dress do not come off as cotton. They look like a more formal fabric such as fine faille or something similar. The first image even looks velvet. Your dress may indeed be a twin, but looking at the photos and at your dress, the fabric seems to be not quite identical. I also wonder if this was made for a production and am looking forward to seeing the interior details.
Click to expand...
hi amber
just to note the dress i have actually is a very formal material, not cotton. the lace eyelet material is cotton. the black material is very weighted and sort of has a faint sheen to it, so perhaps when hit with light it might look to be velvet in a black and white photo.
 
here are a few photos of the dress inside out.
please excuse the winkleness. this dress has been neatly packed away for a while now.
also, does any body know how tall miss Holiday was? perhaps knowing how tall she was might clarify or match the length of this dress?
and just a thought, if this dress was made for a theater or somehting wouldn't it have been very unlikely to have found and used the same exact materials as this dress, seeing that this dress seems to have aged properly with the time period of miss holidays career, so why would they make a play about miss holiday when she was at the height of her career, in most cases these types of things are created for entertainment after the death of the famed person, i could be totally wrong, but to me it sort of seems illogical to have a play about miss holiday while she was still alive and at the height of her career.
howvever, now that i have the dress here im going to take some time and lay it flat and try counting the eyelet details, if anyone have any other photos of Billie Holiday in this dress other than the ones i posted please feel free to share so i can use them as a reference/resource.
thank you all so much!
 

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im not sure all photos showed up in my last reply so i'll try again.
there should be three total.
 

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after looking very closely at this in my hands, i belive jonathan is right that the pattern does not match up when counting from the seam.
howvever, i belive this dress must have been in production as seems that this dress is nearly identical to hers, but that being said since it doesnt seem that its the exact one she wore would there be any vaule in it being that is connected to her? or pricing with its connection, would that be unfair?
 
I don't know Billie's measurements but personally, I would expect her to be smaller than the measurements you've listed for this dress.

You say that the waist is 29-30 inches: I'm not sure what that means? Do you mean that the waist measures 29.5 inches? Or that it has some stretch? I would expect BH to be much smaller, more like a waist between 25-27 inches as she wasn't a big woman, and in 1947 when she was photographed in this dress, she was still using heroin.
 
Thanks for clarifying the fabric. You had mentioned cotton in one of your previous cotton, so I was under the impression that it was all cotton.

Can you show close ups of the interior of the dress at the side seam, zipper, and hem?

And I think that even though this was not Billie's dress, that being the same model, will still gain you an audience for it. I think you can still mention her when selling the dress though. Someone who is a big fan, or who emulates her may be VERY interested.
 
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